


look around, look around (at how lucky we are to be alive right now)

by gingergenower



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodhi Rook Centric, Existential Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Suicidal Thoughts, pls be careful there are Hella angsts in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:50:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9455759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingergenower/pseuds/gingergenower
Summary: Bodhi Rook meets a fellow rebellion pilot, and he brings the kind of hope she's looking for.





	

At night, Jedha burns behind Bodhi's eyelids. The surface strips from the whole like charcoal flesh, raw and exposed, and he's watching, waiting, waiting, waiting-

He sits bolt upright in the dark. Panting, he tells himself it's not real. Not now, anyway.

On the other side of the room, Jyn’s breathing softly. They were given quarters together but he's pretty sure it was wasted on them. He can't sleep, and he's not sure she even tries to. Usually early in the morning, he'll hear soft, hitched breathes stifled in pillows. She cries with the practice of a child who has been alone too long. He's not sure how to reach out to her; she's the kind of person who cuts off hands that stray too close and he's not sure he should tell Cassian. The man worries about her already, and he’s the one who is committed to the medical bay with broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Grimacing, he peels the sheets off, stuck to him with cold sweat, and snatches up a towel. There’s no hope of falling back to sleep- it’s nearly 4am- but he’ll collapse into bed tonight. 

The refreshers are empty, quiet, and he clears his head in the steam. Once he's clean he pulls his old Imperial jumpsuit on. Most people around the base are used to him wearing it, no one's got time to ask questions. It feels like gloating, somehow; the Empire's emblem stands in the midst of X-Wings and sits at the bedsides of rebel intelligence officers and is put away in the closet of the woman who stole the Death Star plans.

The hangar’s empty, but it usually is between 2am and 5am. Occasionally a mission leaves, once or twice something comes back, but mostly it’s quiet and Bodhi likes the space to breathe.

He types the passcode into the keypad of their shuttle. A few days ago, he was sent on a mission with Jyn to retrieve something, and she’d had to improvise, stealing it on Agamar. Bodhi refused to let her on his ship, demanding she bring it back with her because he loves how Empire shuttles fly, but there’s hours of repairs ahead of him yet. The anti-gravity stabilizer was hit when she escaped, and he heard her adventures trying to strap herself into the pilot's seat over the comms.

Footsteps behind him catch his attention.

An X-Wing pilot, one he’s seen around when he patches up the shuttle, zips up her orange jumpsuit as she nears him. 

She saved his life the other day, pointing out the shuttle’s engine was still running while he was holding a fistful of wires.

"Are you a mechanic?" she calls, eyes tight.

Bodhi rocks his hand from side to side, pulling a face. "I'm a pilot, but I do a lot of repair work. What's wrong?"

"The navigation system's malfunctioning."

He gestures. "Lead the way."

She scrapes her curly hair off her face as she walks and snaps an elastic band in place, ebony complexion glowing in the floodlights of the hangar. "My mechanic was supposed to do it last night, but he- well, he hasn't, and we're due to leave in forty-five minutes."

"It's probably a hardware problem," he says, hauling himself up the ladder and sitting in the cockpit. She follows him up, leaning against the frame of the X-Wing and watching him unscrew the dashboard, chin in her hand.

"I'm Kya Lars, by the way."

With a smile, he glances up at her. "Bodhi Rook. Thanks for saving me the other day."

"Not a problem. Should've known you weren't a mechanic, though."

"Not a mechanic or a terrible mechanic. Either way, you probably shouldn't have asked for my help- oh, it's just a trapped wire. Could you find me a hammer and some electrical tape?"

The electrical tape soars through the air and lands in his lap, but Kya passes him the hammer when she's back up the ladder. "Here you go."

"Thanks."

"Where did you get the outfit?"

"Hmm?" he looks down. "Oh, I'm a defector."

She leans away slightly. 

Bodhi turns back to the dashboard, jaw tight. He's used to that response. Tapping the hammer against the black box, he manages to tug the wire free. The plastic casing's damaged, but the wire isn't, and sliding his finger around the tape, he finds the end and starts picking at it.

"Do you regret defecting?"

He frowns, looking up at her.

"This isn't exactly the winning side, is it?" She's no older than Jyn, perhaps 23, but her smile's bitter and her eyes are dark as she looks around the hangar.

Bodhi doesn't look at her. "I don't regret defecting."

Not answering, she twists a ring around her finger. A tiny red stone's embedded in the gold band. Bodhi points with his thumb.

"Someone important?"

"Oh- my husband."

Still picking at the electrical tape, he turns to her. He can't picture someone as young as her married.

"We were childhood sweethearts," she explains, seeing his face. She leans in to see the mess of wires inside her console. "He gave me a flower on my fourteenth birthday. Fast forward four years and we ran away together, got married and joined the resistance."

"Because that's what newlyweds do?"

"No, the resistance was his stupid idea. Getting married first was mine."

"What does he do?"

"He was based in Eerie."

Bodhi takes a deep breath. Past tense: was. He turns back to the console, ripping off some tape with his teeth and wrapping it with precise fingers around the wire. "I'm sorry."

Kya hangs off the frame of the ship with one hand, admiring her ring. "It was a couple of years ago, it's okay. His last words were pretty amazing. He was all dramatic about it, apparently. They dragged him onto a transport but there wasn't anything they could do, and he saved some other man's life, so he grabs that guy's hand and he makes him promise he'll come and find me. The guy promises, and with his dying breath he says 'tell my wife I love her ass'."

The shocked laughter bursts out of him- he covers his mouth, but she's grinning too.

"Really?"

"That's what he said," she said, and she leans back in.

For a moment, they smile at each other, but she looks back down at her ring and Bodhi turns back to the console. He works the rest of the job in silence, arranging the wiring carefully and fitting the dashboard back in place. Turning the X-Wing on, he tests the system, and it tracks their path out of the hangar fine."

"Thank you," she says, exhaling softly and trying to force a smile.

"No problem." Putting a hand on her shoulder, he holds her gaze. "Anytime."

***

The hangar’s so busy, no one notices Bodhi.

He sees Kya around, but they don’t have much to say to each other and she’s always rushing somewhere, bags under her eyes. He doesn’t want to distract her. Instead, he settles into the rhythm of fixing the ship. Cassian’s going to be cleared for duty in the next few days, he’s going take a screwdriver to the medical droids and reprogram them to it, Bodhi’s sure, so the shuttle has to be ready for him.

Rolling out from under the ship, he hears shouts, and half the base is staring across at two X-Wing pilots. One of them is Kya, but she’s interrupted by the man yelling at her.

"I'm your commanding officer-"

"I made a judgment call and I was _right_ -"

"You endangered everyone out there!"

Kya scoffs. "You all would've been fine, if I'd been hit I would've dive-bombed straight into their command centre, I lined myself up that way, you all would've got back-"

"You're suicidal and you're grounded until further notice."

Whatever she was going to say next stops in her throat. She stares at the other pilot.

He sighs, stepping back. "Until you can prove you'll take orders and not try to get yourself killed, you're not flying with me."

"But-"

"That's the end of it, Lars. Dismissed."

They stare at each other. Kya doesn't seem to be able to move, and her eyes are glazed over, like she's in shock. Bodhi doesn't much think about it; he jogs out to her, putting an arm around her waist and steering her away.

"C'mon," he says, low in her ear. "Come with me."

Jyn tries to talk to him, but he ignores her, leading Kya out of the hangar and into the corridors, where she stops, still staring into the distance.

"I've been doing this since I was eighteen." Her voice cracks. "How can he- I knew what I was risking, I'm not stupid-"

"Breathe, Kya."

"I made the mission worth going on, if I hadn't stopped that transport it would've been a wasted trip. I- he can't do that, I have to talk to-"

She starts down the corridor, but Bodhi catches her wrist. He holds tighter when she tries to shake him off.

"You can't go anywhere like this, you won't make any sense."

Fingers curl into fists, she tries one last yank. "I _need_ to fly."

Bodhi nods, because he knows that itch. His feet don’t belong on stable ground, he needs the air and open spaces to remind him he’s free.

She slides down the wall, Bodhi letting her hand go, and she bites her lip, face crumpling. 

He sighs, reaching out. "Do you even want to be here?"

She shakes her head, and he sits next to her not quite close enough to touch, a few pilots leaving the hangar and passing them without so much as looking at her. 

"You should probably go home," he says. Rebellions don't have time for broken hearts and suicidal tendencies.

"I can't."

"I know you ran away, but-"

"Home was Alderaan."

It's like the air's kicked out of his lungs. Her husband, her family, her home, everyone she ever knew- he closes his eyes, head tipped back against the wall. Screaming, burning. Watching. 

There’s a strange hum in the base, like triumph. Galen Erso offered a button to the rebels and they pressed it, destroying the Death Star as neatly as it, in turn, obliterated Jedha and Scarif and Alderaan. It’s like it’s a victory that they weren’t killed, like there isn’t a body count aligned with their lives.

Bodhi knows there is, but they’re just trying to survive; the single-mindedness of breathing. He doesn’t begrudge them it.

"Jedha," he breathes.

"What?"

"Home was Jedha."

Kya's hand finds his and closes around, tight. He leans over, his sleeve catching a few tears on her cheeks.

"It hurts," she says. "We just keep losing, I don't think there's such a thing as winning, people'll keep dying and my life's gone but I'm still here and what does that even mean, why am I still _here_ -?"

Kneeling, he pulls her up too and she clings to him, face pressed into his shoulder. She cries there, and he takes a steadying breath to push back his own tears.

“Your being here doesn’t mean anything,” he says, holding her tight. “It’s luck, we’re not alive for any special purpose, we just are, so we get to decide what it means. It means fighting back, it means not someone else’s family, it means _not today_. Facing oblivion with defiance is as much as any of us can do. You’re already doing that. They’d be proud of you, Kya. They would.”

Her choked sobs echo down the corridor, and he holds her as long as she needs him to.

***

A few weeks later, someone made the call to scrap his shuttle for parts. Cassian took them on a mission and they were shot too many time, landed too heavy, for it to be worth fixing. Someone passed over a Dynamic-Class Freighter and Bodhi’s making it work. It’s not as pretty as his shuttle, who lasted six missions, but with the hyperdrive tweaked a little and some improvements to the shields it might be able to take a few more hits.

He's trying to pry the panel off when Kya rests against it. She's back in her orange jumpsuit. He shoves her shoulder, but she doesn't budge. "Do you mind?"

"Not really." She's grinning.

Bodhi flicks her waist, the material of the orange jumpsuit. "Back in the air, then?"

"In twenty minutes. It's just a scouting mission, but."

"Still flying, isn't it?"

"Exactly," she says, savouring the word. He's hasn’t seen her like this before- there's something mischievous about her, all bright eyes looking up at him through her lashes, arms folded, smile pressing at the corner of her mouth.

He gives up on the ship and leans against it next to her, eyebrow raised. "You seem happy."

"I've got my X-Wing. Scouting missions are an excellent way of saying ‘fuck you’ to the Empire, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know a better way, honestly.”

She grins, and turns to leave, but he swallows, catching her wrist. Kya doesn’t try to wrench herself free, just looks at him and waits. He takes a deep breath.

“…try to come back. Yeah?”

Hovering for a moment, she blinks up at him, and leans in to press a kiss to his cheek. “Living's a kind of defiance, isn't it?”

“...yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> I realized the other day my roots in fanfic are writing OC's so this is a lil nod to that  
> and the title is Hamilton because I got Hamilton tickets for London and saw Rogue One again on the same day and I am PUMPED about it (also it fits really well for what I was aiming at with this fic, but that's unimportant)


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